Halo: Orgins
by sparta
Summary: This story is about all of the Halo's.    Rated: T, for violence
1. Halo: CE Halo 1

**Halo: CE (Halo 1)**

As a first-person shooter, Halo: Combat Evolved has a gameplay fundamentally similar to that of its peers, focusing on combat in a 3D environment, and taking place almost entirely from a character's eye view. The player can move around and look up, down, left or right.[17] The game features vehicles, ranging from armored jeeps and tanks to alien hovercraft and aircraft, many of which can be controlled by the player. The game switches to the third-person perspective during vehicle use for pilots and mounted gun operators; passengers maintain a first-person view.

The player character is equipped with a damage-absorbing energy shield, in addition to hit points. The shield's charge appears as a blue bar in the upper-right hand corner of the game's heads-up display. When the shield is fully depleted, the player is highly vulnerable, and further damage is applied directly to the character's health level. Critically, the shield will recharge if no further damage is sustained for a brief period.

Halo's arsenal consists of weapons from science fiction. The game has been praised for giving each weapon a unique purpose, thus making them useful in different scenarios.[20] For example, plasma weapons need time to cool if fired too rapidly, but cannot be reloaded and must be discarded upon depletion of battery. In contrast, conventional firearms cannot overheat, but require reloading and ammunition. Players may carry only two weapons at once; thus, a strategy is required when using and selecting firearms.

Halo departs from traditional FPS conventions by not forcing the player character to holster their firearm before deploying grenades or melee-range blunt instruments; instead, both attacks can be utilized while a gun is still equipped, supplanting or supplementing small-arms fire. All weapons may be used to bludgeon enemies, which allows the Master Chief to silently kill opponents without alerting other nearby enemies. The Chief can also carry up to eight grenades at a time: four fragmentation and four plasma grenades each. Like the game's other weapons, the two types of grenades differ; the fragmentation grenade bounces and detonates quickly, whereas the plasma grenade adheres to targets before exploding, sometimes with blackly comic results.

Combatants

The game's main enemy force is the Covenant, a group of alien species allied by belief in a common religion. Their forces include Elites, fierce warriors protected by recharging energy shields much like the player's own; Grunts, which are short, cowardly creatures, usually led by Elites, and who often flee in terror instead of fighting unless an Elite is present; Jackals, which wear highly durable energy shields on their arms; and Hunters, large, powerful creatures with thick armor plates that cover the majority of their bodies.

A secondary enemy is the Flood, a parasitic alien life form that appears in three main variants.[27] Infection Forms, the true form of the Flood, are fragile and do little damage individually, but often travel in swarms of several dozen. Combat Forms result from humans and Covenant Elites who have succumbed to the Infection Forms, and have hideously deformed bodies. Bloated Carrier Forms are the result of an aged or unused Combat Form and serve as incubators for new Infection Forms; when wounded or near a potential victim, they explode to damage other nearby life-forms and to release their spores, thus perpetuating the life cycle. Battling the Flood, Covenant and human forces are the Sentinels, robotic drones designed by an extinct race called the Forerunners. Sentinels lack durability, but use powerful beam weapons and are immune to infection by the Flood.

The artificial intelligence in Halo has been favourably received. Enemies take cover and use suppressive fire and grenades. Some enemies retreat when their superiors are killed. The player is often aided by United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Marines, who offer ground support, such as manning gun turrets or riding shotgun while the player is driving a vehicle.

Multiplayer

As Halo was released before Xbox Live, online multiplayer games were not officially supported. The game instead uses local Ethernet or "system-link" that supports a maximum of 16 players. This setup was a first for a console game, but was often deemed impractical by critics. As Halo lacks artificially intelligent game bots, LAN parties are needed to reach the game's 16-player limit. In addition to five customizable competitive multiplayer modes, two players may co-operatively play through the game's campaign. Halo's multiplayer components were generally well-received by critics and is widely considered one of the best multiplayer games of all time.

Although the Xbox version of Halo lacks official support for online multiplayer play, XLink Kai, GameSpy and XBConnect's packet tunnelling software provide unofficial ways around this limitation. The Windows and Macintosh ports of Halo support online matches involving up to 16 players and include multiplayer maps not in the original Xbox release. However, co-operative play was removed from the ports because it would have required large amounts of recoding to implement. On March 15, 2004, Gearbox Software released Halo: Custom Edition for Windows, which enabled players to use custom-made maps and game modifications.

Plot

Setting

Halo: Combat Evolved takes place in a science fiction universe created by Bungie Studios specifically for the game. According to the story, the overpopulation of Earth and the realization of faster-than-light travel have caused the human race to colonize other planets. A keystone of these efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard and a hub of scientific and military activity. A secret military endeavor, dubbed the SPARTAN Project, was established on Reach to create an army of biologically engineered, cyborg "super-soldiers". Twenty-seven years before the beginning of the game, a technologically advanced collective of alien races, the Covenant, began to attack human settlements, declaring humanity an affront to their gods. The United Nations Space Command experienced a series of crushing defeats, and, although the super-soldiers of the SPARTAN-II Project fought effectively against the Covenant, they were too few in numbers to turn the tides of war.

To prepare for a mission to discover the location of the Covenant's homeworld, SPARTAN-II soldiers were recalled to Reach for armor upgrades. Two days before the mission was to begin, Covenant forces attacked Reach and destroyed the colony. A starship, the Pillar of Autumn, survived the onslaught with the lead SPARTAN-II, Master Chief, onboard. The ship initiated a random jump to slipspace (similar to hyperspace), hoping to lead the enemy away from Earth. The game starts with the Pillar of Autumn encountering Halo.

The titular Halo is an enormous, ring-shaped artificial space habitat/planet, which (according to Bungie Studios) has a diameter of ten thousand kilometers. Halo sits at a Lagrange point between a planet and its moon. Centrifugal force created by the rotation of the station provides the ring's gravity.


	2. Halo: 2

**Halo: 2**

Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved. A Microsoft Windows version of the game was released on May 31, 2007, developed by an internal team as Microsoft Game Studios. The game features a new game engine, as well as using the Havok physics engine; added weapons and vehicles, and new multiplayer maps. The player alternately assumes the roles of the human Master Chief and the alien Arbiter in a twenty-sixth century conflict between the human United Nations Space Command and genocidal Covenant.

After the success of Combat Evolved, a sequel was expected and highly anticipated. Bungie found inspiration in plot points and game play elements that had been left out of their first game, including multiplayer over the internet through Xbox Live. Time constraints forced a series of cutbacks in the size and scope of the game, including a cliff-hanger ending to the game's campaign mode that left many in the studio dissatisfied. Among Halo 2's marketing efforts was an alternate reality game called "I Love Bees" that involved players solving real-world puzzles.

On release, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live, holding that rank until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 nearly two years later. By June 20, 2006, more than 500 million games of Halo 2 had been played and more than 710 million hours have been spent playing it on Xbox Live; by May 9, 2007, this number had risen to more than five million unique players. Halo 2 is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game with at least 6.3 million copies sold in the United States alone. Critical reception of the game was generally positive, with most publications lauding the strong multiplayer component. The campaign was the focus of criticism for its cliff-hanger ending.

Halo 2 is a shooter game, with players predominantly experiencing game play from a first-person perspective. Players use a combination of human and alien weaponry and vehicles to progress through the game's levels. The player's health bar is not visible, but are instead equipped with a damage-absorbing shield that regenerates when not taking fire.

Certain weapons can be dual-wielded, allowing the player to trade accuracy, the use of grenades and melee attacks for raw firepower. The player can carry two weapons at a time (or three if dual-wielding; one weapon remains holstered), with each weapon having advantages and disadvantages in different combat situations. For example, most Covenant weapons eschew disposable ammo clips for a contained battery, which cannot be replaced if depleted. However, these weapons can overheat if fired continuously for prolonged periods. Human weapons are less effective at penetrating shields and require reloading, but cannot overheat due to prolonged fire. The player can carry a total of eight grenades to dislodge and disrupt enemies. New in Halo 2 is the ability to board enemy vehicles that are near the player and travelling at low speeds. The player or AI latches onto the vehicle and forcibly ejects the other driver from the vehicle.

Campaign

The game's "Campaign" mode offers options for both single-player and cooperative multiplayer participation. In campaign mode, the player must complete a series of levels that encompass Halo 2's storyline. These levels alternate between the Master Chief and a Covenant Elite called the Arbiter, who occupy diametrically opposed roles in the story's conflict. Aside from variations in storyline, the Arbiter differs from Master Chief only in that his armour lacks a flashlight; instead, it is equipped with a short duration rechargeable form of active camouflage that disappears when the player attacks or takes damage.

There are four levels of difficulty in campaign mode: Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary. An increase in difficulty will result in an increase in the number, rank, health, damage, and accuracy of enemies; a reduction of duration and an increase in recharge time for the Arbiter's active camouflage; a decrease in the player's health and shields; and occasional changes in dialogue.

There is hidden content within the game, including easter eggs, messages, hidden objects, and weapons. The most well-known of the hidden content are the skulls hidden on every level. The skulls, which can be picked up like a weapon, are located in hard-to-reach places. Many are exclusive to the Legendary mode of difficulty. Once activated, each skull has a specific effect on game play. For example, the "Sputnik" skull found on the Quarantine Zone level alters the mass of objects in the game; thus resulting in explosions being able to launch these objects across larger distances. Skull effects can be combined to provide various new levels of difficulty and/or novelty.

Multiplayer

Unlike its predecessor, Halo 2 allows players to compete with each other via Xbox Live, in addition to support for split-screen and system link multiplayer mode. Halo 2's multiplayer mode offers changes from earlier online console first-person shooters. Traditionally, one player sets his or her computer or console up as a game server or host, specifying the game type and map, and configuring other settings. The game software then uses a service such as GameSpy to advertise the game to the world at large; other players choose which game to join based upon criteria such as the map and game options each host is offering, as well as the ping times they are able to receive. In Halo 2, however, Xbox Live players do not host public games or specify individual maps and options to search for. Instead, they select playlists that are geared to different styles of play. For fairness and balance reasons, certain game play aspects of the campaign mode are disabled or missing in multiplayer mode; for example, the Fuel Rod weapon is missing from vehicles and maps.

Technical lead designer, Chris Butcher, commented on the development of Halo 2's multiplayer mode in Edge, a British gaming magazine, in January 2007. Responding to a rash of subsequent news articles, Butcher clarified his position on Halo 2 multiplayer: "For Halo 2 we had our sights set very high on networking", Butcher said. "We thought about the great LAN parties you can have with Halo 1 and decided to try [to] recreate that awesome experience of having all your buddies over to play, but using Xbox Live instead of having to lug consoles and televisions around. Going from having no Internet multiplayer to developing a completely new online model was a big challenge to tackle all at once, and as a result we had to leave a lot of things undone in order to meet the ship date commitment that we made to our fans."

Plot

Setting

See also: Halo: Combat Evolved and Factions of Halo

Halo 2 takes place in the 26th century. Humans, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command or UNSC, have developed faster-than-light slipspace travel and colonized numerous worlds.[13] According to the game's backstory, the outer colony world of Harvest was decimated by a collective of alien races known as the Covenant in 2525. Declaring humanity an affront to their gods, the Forerunners, the Covenant begin to systemically obliterate the humans with their superior numbers and technology. After the human bastion at the planet Reach is destroyed, a single ship, The Pillar of Autumn, follows protocol and initiates a random slipspace jump to lead the Covenant away from Earth. The crew discovers a Forerunner ringworld called Halo, which the Covenant wants to activate because of their religious belief that the activation of the ring will bring about a "Great Journey", sweeping loyal Covenant to salvation.[19]Leading a guerilla insurgency on the ring's surface, the humans discover that the rings are actually weapons of last resort built to contain a terrifying parasite called the Flood. The human supersoldier Master Chief and his AI companion Cortana learn from Halo's AI monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, that activation of the Halos will prevent the spread of the Flood by destroying all sentient life the parasite can subsist on in the galaxy. Instead of activating the ring, however, the Master Chief evades Guilty Spark and his robots and detonates the Pillar of Autumn's engines, destroying the installation and preventing the escape of the Flood. The Master Chief and Cortana race back to Earth to warn of an impending invasion by Covenant forces.[20]

Story

Taking place shortly after the events of the novel Halo: First Strike, Halo 2 opens with the trial of a Covenant Elite commander aboard the Covenant's mobile capital city of High Charity. The Elite is stripped of his rank, branded a heretic for failing to stop the humans from destroying Halo, and is tortured by Tartarus, the Chieftain of the Covenant Brutes. On Earth, the Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson are commended for their actions at Halo. Lord Terrence Hood awards the soldiers alongside Commander Miranda Keyes, who accepts a medal on behalf of her deceased father, Captain Jacob Keyes.[21]

A Covenant fleet appears outside Earth's defensive perimeter and begins an invasion of the planet. While the UNSC repels most of the fleet, a single Covenant cruiser carrying an important member of the Covenant hierarchy, the High Prophet of Regret, assaults the city of New Mombasa, Kenya. The Master Chief assists in clearing the city of Covenant; with his fleet destroyed, Regret makes a hasty slipspace jump, and Keyes, Johnson, Cortana and the Master Chief follow aboard the UNSC ship In Amber Clad. The crew discover another Halo installation; realizing the danger the ring presents, Keyes sends the Master Chief to kill Regret while she and Johnson find Halo's key to activation, the Index.

Meanwhile, the disgraced Covenant commander is presented before the Prophet Hierarchs, who acknowledge that though the destruction of Halo was his fault, he is no heretic. They offer him the honored position of Arbiter so that he can continue to fight for the Covenant. On his first mission to kill a heretic, the Arbiter discovers 343 Guilty Spark, who the Covenant calls an "oracle", and brings him back to High Charity. Responding to Regret's distress call, High Charity and the Covenant fleet arrive at the new Halo, Installation 05, just before the Master Chief kills Regret. Bombarded from space, the Chief falls into a lake and is rescued by a mysterious tentacled creature.

The death of Regret sows seeds of discord among the races of the Covenant, as the Hierarchs have given the Brutes the Elites' traditional job of protecting them in the wake of the death. The Arbiter is sent to find Halo's Index and captures it, Johnson, and Keyes before being confronted by Tartarus. He reveals to the Arbiter that the Prophets have ordered the annihilation of the Elites, and sends the Arbiter falling down a deep chasm.

The Arbiter is saved by the tentacled creature and meets the Master Chief in the bowels of the installation. The creature, Gravemind, is the leader of the Flood on Installation 05. Gravemind reveals to the Arbiter that the Great Journey would destroy Flood, humans, and Covenant together. Gravemind sends the Arbiter and Master Chief to different places to stop Halo's activation. The Master Chief is teleported into High Charity, where a civil war has broken out among the Covenant; In Amber Clad crashes into the city, and Cortana realizes that Gravemind used them as a distraction to infest In Amber Clad and spread the Flood. As the parasite overruns the city, consuming the Prophet of Mercy in the process, the Prophet of Truth orders Tartarus to take Keyes, Johnson, and Guilty Spark to Halo's control room and activate the ring. The Master Chief follows Truth aboard a Forerunner ship leaving the city; Cortana remains behind to destroy High Charity and Halo if Tartarus succeeds in activating the ring.[22]

The Arbiter is sent to the surface of Halo, where he rallies his allies to assault the Brute's position. With the help of Johnson, he confronts Tartarus in Halo's control room. When the Arbiter tries to convince Tartarus that the Prophets have betrayed them both, Tartarus angrily activates the ring, and a battle ensues. The Arbiter and Johnson manage to kill Tartarus while Keyes removes the Index. Instead of shutting down the ring entirely, a system wide fail-safe protocol is triggered, putting Installation 05 and all the other Halo rings on standby for activation from a remote location, which Guilty Spark refers to as "the Ark".[23] As Truth's ship arrives amidst a raging battle on Earth, Hood asks the Master Chief what he is doing aboard the ship. The Chief replies, "Sir, finishing this fight."

In a post-credits scene, Gravemind is seen arriving on High Charity, where Cortana agrees to answer the Flood intelligence's questions.


	3. Halo: 3

**Halo: 3**

Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2. The game was released on September 25, 2007 in Australia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, North America, and Singapore; September 26, 2007 in Europe; and September 27, 2007 in Japan. Halo 3's story centers on the interstellar war between twenty-sixth century humanity and a collection of alien races known as the Covenant. The player assumes the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he battles the Covenant. The game features vehicles, weapons, and gameplay not present in previous titles of the series, as well as the addition of saved gameplay films, file sharing, and the Forge map editor—a utility which allows the player to perform modifications to multiplayer levels.

Bungie began developing Halo 3 shortly after Halo 2 shipped. The game was officially announced at E3 2006, and its release was preceded by a multiplayer beta open to select players who purchased the Xbox 360 game Crackdown. Microsoft spent $40 million on marketing the game, in an effort to sell more game consoles and broaden the appeal of the game beyond the established Halo fanbase. Marketing included cross-promotions and an alternate reality game.

On the day before its official release, 4.2 million units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets. Halo 3 grossed US$300 million in its first week. More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours. Halo 3 has now sold in excess of 8.1 million copies and was the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S. Overall, the game was very well received by critics, with the Forge and multiplayer offerings singled out as strong features; however some reviewers criticized single-player aspects, especially the plot and campaign layout. A prequel to the game, Halo 3: ODST, was released worldwide on September 22, 2009; a sequel, Halo 4, is in development.

Halo 3 is a shooter game where players primarily experience gameplay from a first-person perspective. Much of the gameplay takes place on foot, but also includes segments focused on vehicular combat. The balance of weapons and objects in the game was adjusted to better adhere to the "Golden Triangle of Halo": these are weapons, grenades, and melee attacks, which are available to a player in most situations. Players may dual-wield some weapons, forgoing the use of grenades and melee attacks in favour of the combined firepower of two weapons. Many weapons available in previous installments of the series return with minor cosmetic and power alterations. Unlike previous installments, the player's secondary weapon is visible on their player model, holstered or slung across the player's back.

Halo 3 introduces "support weapons", which are cumbersome two-handed weapons that slow the player, but offer greatly increased firepower in return. In addition to weapons, the game contains a new class of gear called equipment;[11] these items have various effects, ranging from defensive screens to shield regeneration and flares. Only one piece of equipment can be carried at a time. The game's vehicular component has been expanded with new drivable and A.I.-only vehicles.

Halo 3 contains non-gameplay additions, including Forge, a map-editing tool. Forge enables players to insert and remove game objects, such as weapons and crates, into existing multiplayer maps. Almost all weapons, vehicles, and interactive objects can be placed and moved on maps with Forge. Players can enter Forge games and edit and manipulate objects in real time. A budget limits the amount of objects that can be placed. Players may also save up to 100 films of gameplay to their Xbox 360's hard drive, viewing the action from any angle and at different speeds. Halo 3 offers a form of file sharing, where items such as saved films, screenshots, and custom variants can all be uploaded to Bungie's official website, . Anyone can browse user created content that has been uploaded to Bungie's website and tag it to automatically download to their console next time they sign into Xbox Live on Halo 3.

Modes

Halo 3's story or campaign mode can be played through alone or cooperatively with up to three other players via Xbox Live or System Link. Instead of having each player be an identical character as in previous Halo games, the first player plays as Master Chief, and the second player plays as the Arbiter. The other two players control two Covenant Elites, N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham, each with their own backstories. No matter which character is played, each player has identical abilities, though their starting weapons vary. Hidden skulls found on each level cause changes to the gameplay when enabled, such as giving the enemies extra health, changing in-game dialogue, or modifying A.I. behavior. These skulls, as well as the difficulty level and the speed at which the level is completed, provide multipliers to the total score. Players are awarded gamerscore points for unlocking Achievements by reaching a certain score in each level.

Local area network or Xbox Live supports up to sixteen players in multiplayer matches, with game modes including variations of deathmatch and Capture the Flag. Players must actively seek out other players through their Xbox Live Friends list, using the party invite system, or the LAN search feature to play multiplayer matches with their own custom rules and customized maps. If they are connected to Xbox Live however, a player can choose to have the game decide for them the exact rules and map to play on, as well as finding additional people to play against or with, using the "Matchmaking" system (the automated grouping of players of similar skill). A player will decide from a selection of developer designed "playlists" which each contain a certain way to experience the game.

Like other multiplayer Xbox 360 titles, Halo 3 uses a customized version of TrueSkill ranking system for its matchmaking on a per-playlist basis. A linear measure of a player's experience with the matchmade portion of the game and each particular playlist is also tracked (denoted as EXP). To help players have an enjoyable time online, several peace-of-mind features are implemented within easy reach, such as avoid/feedback options on a player's service record, as well as voice chat mute straight from the in-game scoreboard. Like Halo 2, Halo 3 supports downloadable content and updates.

Plot

Setting and characters

See also: Characters of Halo

Halo 3 is set in a science fiction setting during the years 2552 and 2553. In the year 2525, a theocratic alliance of alien races known as the Covenant discover humanity spread across dozens of interstellar colonies. The Covenant declare humanity an affront to their gods and begin destroying colonies by bombarding the planets with barrages of plasma, turning their surfaces into glass. Despite efforts to keep the Covenant from finding further human worlds, a Covenant fleet discovers Earth during Halo 2.

"Halos" are massive ringworlds, several hundred kilometers in diameter, scattered across the galaxy. These rings were constructed thousands of years ago by a race known as the Forerunners as weapons of last resort against the parasitic alien species known as the Flood. When activated, the Halos would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, depriving the Flood of its food.[29] The Forerunners disappeared after they activated the rings.[30] In Halo: Combat Evolved, a small human ship fleeing the Covenant stumbled upon one of these ringworlds, Installation 04. The humans manage to destroy the ring, stopping the Flood; the Covenant, unaware of the destructive nature of the rings, attempt to fire another ring, Installation 05, during Halo 2 in order to fulfill their religious prophecy. One race in the Covenant, the Elites, learn the truth about the rings, and join forces with humanity in order to stop the firing of the ring. Though they are successful, the unexpected shutdown of the installation triggers a fail-safe protocol, priming all the rings for firing from one location, referred to as the Ark. Still oblivious to the true nature of the rings, the Covenant High Prophet of Truth and the remaining loyalist Covenant proceed to head to Earth, where they believe the Ark is buried.

Halo 3's protagonist is the Master Chief, a surgically enhanced supersoldier known as a "Spartan". The Chief fights alongside the Arbiter, a disgraced Covenant Elite commander. Two other Elite characters, N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham, appear as the third and fourth players in cooperative play. Supporting characters from previous games return, including human soldiers Avery Johnson and Miranda Keyes. The Forerunner artificial intelligence 343 Guilty Spark, who tries and fails to stop the Master Chief from destroying its ringworld in Halo: Combat Evolved, also makes an appearance. Also playing a role in the story is the Flood entity known as the "Gravemind". In Halo 2, this leader of the Flood escapes from confinement on Installation 05, invades the Covenant mobile capital city of High Charity, and captures Cortana, a human-created artificial intelligence.

Story

After the events of the comic tie-in Halo: Uprising, the Master Chief crashes in eastern Africa, where he is found by Johnson and the Arbiter. The Chief, Johnson, and company fight Covenant in the jungle and arrive at a UNSC outpost. Here, Keyes and Lord Hood plan a final effort to stop the Covenant leader, the High Prophet of Truth, from activating a Forerunner artifact uncovered outside the ruins of the city of New Mombasa. The Chief clears anti-air Covenant defenses so Hood can lead the last of Earth's ships against the Prophet, but Truth activates the buried artifact, creating a slipspace portal which he and his followers enter. A Flood-infested ship crash-lands nearby; Elite forces arrive and vitrify Flood-infected areas of Earth, stopping the threat. Following a message Cortana left aboard the Flood ship, the Chief, Arbiter, Elites, Johnson, Keyes and their troops follow Truth through the portal. Joining them is 343 Guilty Spark, who aids the Chief as he has no function to fulfill after the destruction of his ringworld.

Traveling through the portal, the humans and Elites discover an immense artificial structure known as the Ark, far beyond the edges of the Milky Way galaxy. Here, Truth can remotely activate all the Halos. The Flood arrive en masse aboard High Charity and begin infesting the installation. Truth captures Johnson, as he needs a human to use Forerunner technology. Keyes is killed attempting a rescue, and Johnson is forced to activate the rings. Gravemind forges a truce with the Chief and Arbiter to stop Truth. The Arbiter, Master Chief, and Flood forces arrive and overwhelm Truth's guards, rescuing Johnson and halting the installations' activation. After the Arbiter kills Truth, Gravemind turns on the Chief and Arbiter.

The Chief, Arbiter and Guilty Spark discover that the Ark is constructing a Halo to replace the one that the Chief previously destroyed. The Chief decides to activate this Halo; the ringworld would eliminate the Flood infestation on the Ark while sparing the galaxy at large from destruction. To activate the ring, the Chief rescues Cortana, who has the Activation Index of the destroyed Halo, from High Charity and destroys the city. Arriving on the new Halo, Cortana warns that Gravemind is trying to rebuild itself on the ring. The Chief, Arbiter, and Johnson travel to Halo's control room to activate the ring. Guilty Spark explains that because the ring is not yet complete, a premature activation will destroy it and the Ark. When Johnson ignores his warning, Guilty Spark kills him to protect "his" ring. The Chief and Arbiter destroy Guilty Spark, activate the ring, and escape the ring's self-destruction on the UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn. However, the force of Halo's blast causes the slipspace portal to collapse, resulting in only the front half of Forward Unto Dawn, carrying the Arbiter, making it back to Earth.

Believing the Chief to have perished, a memorial service is held on Earth for the fallen heroes of the Human-Covenant war. After the memorial service, the Arbiter and his Elite brethren departs for their home planet. Meanwhile, the rear half of Forward Unto Dawn floats in unknown space. Cortana drops a distress beacon, but realizes it may be years before they are rescued. The Chief enters cryonic sleep, telling Cortana to "wake me, when you need me." If the game is completed at the Legendary difficulty level, the scene continues to show the piece of Forward Unto Dawn drifting towards a planet.


	4. Halo: 4

**Halo: 4**

Halo 4 is an upcoming video game and the eighth installment in the Halo franchise being developed for the Xbox 360. Halo 4 is intended to be the first of a new trilogy of Halo series games, named the "Reclaimer Trilogy". Whereas the previous Halo games were developed by Bungie, Halo 4 will be developed by 343 Industries. The game continues some time after the ending of Halo 3, and marks the return of the Master Chief as the main protagonist. Cortana will also appear in the game. The game is set for release in Holiday 2012.

Plot

Set in the aftermath of Halo 3, Master Chief returns to confront his own destiny and face an ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe. Halo 4 marks the start of a new trilogy that begins with its release in 2012.

—Official summary

Halo 4 marks the return of John-117 - the "Master Chief" - as a playable protagonist for the first time since 2007's Halo 3, as 2009's Halo 3: ODST and 2010's Halo: Reach focused on new characters and playing styles. Having been lost in space in the finale of Halo 3, John-117 and Cortana, adrift aboard the wreckage of the UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn, find themselves near a mysterious Forerunner planet, which was first seen at the end of Halo 3 once players beat the game on the highest difficulty setting. A key plot point will involve changes to Cortana and how her exposure to Halo and her operation beyond her natural lifespan may have contribute to her becoming "rampant." Developers revealed in fall 2011 that the game will involve a "shield world," a hollow artificial Dyson sphere type megastructure, possibly being set inside it.

The story of Halo 4 will be focused less on the Halo series' traditional straightforward first person shooter genre, instead relying more on mystery, exploration and discovery. Developers described the game as being grand in scope and scale. Forerunner elements will be featured extensively in the game's environment. Developers also suggested that the game will reveal how humanity and the UNSC have adapted to the galaxy after the end of their war with the Covenant, particularly how they have co-opted Forerunner technology.

Unlike the original trilogy, the story has been designed to be part of a three-game arc from the beginning. In addition, developer 343 Industries is aiming for a more complete connectivity between all of their future media than before, and the Forerunner Saga novel Halo: Primordium, the post-war novel Halo: Glasslands, and the terminals in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, will "definitely" have "resonant connections" to Halo 4's story. Little information has been released regarding the storyline trilogy, but developers have intended that Halo 5 will be a much darker title before the conflict is resolved in Halo 6.


	5. Halo: Reach

**Halo: Reach**

Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the alien Covenant. Players control Noble Six, a member of an elite supersoldier squad, during the battle for the human world of Reach.

Reach was originally announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 in Los Angeles, California, with the first in-engine trailer shown at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. Players who purchased Halo 3: ODST were eligible to participate in a Reach multiplayer beta in May 2010; the beta allowed Bungie to gain player feedback for fixing bugs and making gameplay tweaks before shipping the final version. The developers focused on creating a compelling world, more difficult enemies, and updated graphics and audio.

Halo: Reach grossed US$200 million on its launch day, setting a new record for the franchise. The game sold well in most territories, moving more than three million units its first month in North America. Critical reception was positive; reviewers from publications such as IGN, GamePro, and Official Xbox Magazine called it the best Halo title yet. Reach was Bungie's final Halo game, with future games overseen by the Microsoft subsidiary 343 Industries.

Halo: Reach is a shooter game in which players experience gameplay predominantly from a first-person perspective. Players assume the role of Noble Six, a supersoldier engaged in combat with an alien collective known as the Covenant. Gameplay is more similar to Halo: Combat Evolved than later games in the series. The player character is equipped with a recharging energy shield that absorbs damage from weapons fire and impacts. When the energy shield is depleted, the player character loses health; when the character's health reaches zero, the game reloads from a saved checkpoint. Health is replenished using health packs scattered throughout Reach's levels.

In Halo 3, player characters could carry single-use equipment power-ups that offer temporary offensive or defensive advantages. This system of single-use equipment is replaced in Reach by reusable and persistent "armour abilities" that remain with a character until they are replaced. Among the abilities are a jetpack, active camouflage, sprint, and "armour lock", which immobilizes the player but grants invincibility for a brief period of time. Reach features updated versions of old weapons, plus new weapons fulfilling various combat roles.

Multiplayer

Reach supports player-versus-player multiplayer through splitscreen on a single Xbox 360, local networks (System Link), and the Xbox Live service. Reach includes standard multiplayer modes such as Slayer and Capture the Flag, as well as gametypes new to the franchise. In "Headhunter", player characters drop skulls upon death, which other players can pick up and deposit at special zones for points. When a player dies, all their accumulated skulls are dropped. "Stockpile" has teams race to collect neutral flags, holding them at capture points every minute for points. "Generator Defence" pits three human supersoldiers, or Spartans, against three Covenant soldiers called Elites. The Elites' objective is to destroy three generators, while Spartans defend the installation. After every round the players switch roles. "Invasion" is a six versus six mode with three squads of two on each team.[8] The gametype pits Spartans against Elites; Elites vie for control of territories to disable a shield guarding a navigation core. Once the shield is disabled, they must transfer the core to a dropship; the Spartans must prevent this. As the game progresses, new vehicles and areas of the map become open.

Alongside other multiplayer options is "Firefight", where players take on increasingly difficult waves of foes in a game of survival. Players can customize Firefight options, including the number and types of enemies. Firefight versus allows a player-controlled Elite team to try to stop the Spartan team from scoring points. Game modes like Generator Defense are also playable in Firefight.

Also included with Reach is Forge, a level editor. Players can edit the default multiplayer maps and a large empty map known as Forge World, adding or modifying spawn points, weapons and items. Objects may be phased into other objects, and can also be snapped to specific orientations.

Plot

Setting and characters

Reach takes place in a futuristic science fiction setting; the year is 2552, shortly before the events of the video game Halo: Combat Evolved, and during the events of the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach. Humans, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), have been waging a long war against a collective of alien races known as the Covenant. By the events of Reach, almost all of humanity's interstellar colonies have fallen. Reach itself is an Earthlike colony that serves as the UNSC's main military hub. The colony is home to over 700 million civilians in addition to the military presence.

The game follows the actions of "Noble Team", a UNSC special operations unit composed of elite supersoldiers known as Spartans. Players assume the role of an unnamed new addition to the team, and are identified by the call sign Noble Six. Noble Team's leader is Carter-A259, a no-nonsense soldier. His second-in-command, Kat-B320, has a bionic arm; together, Carter and Kat are the only remaining original members of Noble Team. The other current members include heavy weapons specialist Jorge-052, assault specialist Emile-A239, and marksman Jun-A266.

Story

Noble Team, dispatched to discover why a communications relay has gone offline, discovers Covenant forces on Reach. Soon after, the team defends "Sword Base", an Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) installation, from a Covenant vessel. The team meets Catherine Halsey, a scientist and the mastermind behind the Spartan program and their MJOLNIR powered armor. Halsey informs Noble Team that the Covenant forces at the relay were searching for important information.

Jun and Six are dispatched on a covert mission to assess the Covenant's strength and discover an invasion force. The following morning, Noble Team leads UNSC forces in assaulting a Covenant ground base. When a massive Covenant super-carrier joins the fight, Jorge and Six take part in a plan to destroy the carrier using a makeshift bomb. The Spartans use starfighters to infiltrate a smaller Covenant ship, prepare the bomb and set the ship on a docking course with the carrier. The bomb's timer malfunctions, so Jorge stays behind and sacrifices himself to destroy the carrier. Moments later, huge numbers of Covenant ships arrive at Reach and begin a full-scale invasion.

Six returns to the surface and travels to the city of New Alexandria. The Spartan aids the local military in fighting the Covenant and evacuating the city, reuniting with Noble Team along the way. They retreat to an underground bunker when the Covenant begin to "glass" the city, but Kat is killed by a Covenant sniper before they reach it. Recalled to Sword Base, Noble Team is guided underground to an ancient artifact that Halsey believes is key to winning the war against the Covenant. Six, Carter and Emile are entrusted with transporting the artificial intelligence Cortana, and the information she carries concerning the artifact, to the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn. Jun leaves the team to escort Halsey to another base.

On route to the Autumn's dry dock, Carter is critically wounded. He rams his ship into a Covenant mobile assault platform, allowing Six and Emile to safely reach the shipyard. Emile uses a railgun emplacement to defend the Autumn while Six fights through Covenant ground forces to get Cortana to Captain Jacob Keyes. When Emile is slain by Elites, Six remains behind to control the gun, ensuring the Autumn's escape. The Autumn flees from Reach and discovers a Halo ringworld, sparking the events of Halo: Combat Evolved.

The post-credits scene puts the player in control of Six's last stand against overwhelming Covenant forces. After sustaining heavy damage, Six drops his or her shattered helmet and is overwhelmed. Years later, Six's helmet remains on the grassy plains of a now-restored Reach. A narration by Halsey eulogizes Noble Team, who ultimately enabled humanity's victory over the Covenant.


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